User Reviews

A woman chooses between two suitors and all three join a wagon train heading west. Their peace is ended when, following an attack by the calvary on a native American camp, there is a revenge attack on the wagon train.

A lesser known short by D. W. Griffith, the film appears somewhat ambiguous as to which is the massacre in the title. Impressive film for its time with an apparently anti-war message. Blanche Sweet stars.

The plot is pretty simple. Westward expansion involves clearing a path. It didn't matter that the Indians were just minding their own business. If the soldiers thought they posed a threat, it was too bad for them. The Chief's wife and child die in the massacre and the Chief swears revenge. It eventually comes to pass that the forces will meet again. The action scenes are pretty good, although the little circle of armed people wouldn't have lasted nearly as along as they did. Also, the ending is utterly stupid and contrived.

One of D.W. Griffith's earlier attempts at making a feature longer than on or two reels, this has well-crafted action scenes, and while some of it is surprisingly morally ambiguous, it also effectively communicates an anti-violence message. It's similar to the better-known "Battle at Elderbush Gulch" in following the build-up to a battle between Indians and settlers, and in focusing on the individuals caught up in the ensuing violence. Although the action and human drama are probably not quite as good in this one, of the two features this one takes an especially even-handed approach to the conflict.

The story starts with a Griffith standby, a woman choosing between two suitors, who are then both part of a wagon train heading west, with the rejected suitor now a scout with the wagon train's military escort. The main story shows a brutal cavalry raid on a nearly defenseless Indian village, followed by the revenge attack on the wagon train. The latter attack is an extended sequence that fills up an entire reel or so of film. The scenario is supposed to have been based on events connected with General Custer's final defeat, but as it stands, there are no direct references to the specific historical events, so that is either a misconception or else an advertising technique.

Whatever other views Griffith had (and is often deservedly criticized for), he was always effective in communicating the horrifying effects of war and armed conflicts, especially on families. In both attack sequences, he takes pains to depict the ways that the unarmed, especially women and children, are senselessly killed and maimed. He also has some memorable shots of individuals and their actions when they are under attack.

In this particular feature, although more screen time is devoted to the attack on the wagon train, both attacks are treated in the same manner. In each case, he does not lay blame on the individuals involved in the attack, instead concentrating on the sufferings that they inflict, suggesting perhaps that if they stopped to realize what they were doing, things might be a lot different.

The clear-cut message overshadows somewhat the technical accomplishments of the movie. Griffith would soon do even better from the technical viewpoint, but even this feature already succeeds well in depicting a chaotic battle for an extended period.

Although publicized as a dramatization of Custer's Last Stand, this bears little relation to the events as known. It is a story of.... well, it is one of the most morally ambiguous pieces of Griffith's that I have seen. Griffith spent most of his career using his serious pieces to dramatize society's problems, even when he had no solution to offer, from WHAT WILL WE DO WITH OUR OLD to his last credited directorial job, THE STRUGGLE. I think Griffith meant to raise questions and tell an exciting story, as he always did.

The first question is: which massacre? After some setting scenes, we witness a massacre as a cavalry unit attacks an Indian village. We are not told why they are attacking it. Then, when that is over, we see a wagon train moving west. Was the massacre of the Indians intended to leave their lands empty for settlers? The camera pulls back, and we see a wolf watching the wagon train, then a bear appears and drives off the wolf. Then the bear is driven off by an Indian scout in a bearskin.... and he brings the Indian forces that massacre the wagon train, leaving only Blanche Sweet and her baby alive.

To which massacre does the film's title refer? Who is to blame? Who began this cycle of massacres? Who benefits? Was there no beginning and can there be no end?

Although Griffith directed more than five hundred pictures, almost all of which survive, he has a vast corpus of works that are rarely seen, because so many people concentrate on his best features and perhaps a dozen of his best-known shorts. Kino is to be applauded for including a sizable number of his lesser-known, but equally powerful shorts in their most recent compilation, and for hiring John Mirsalis to do scores.

Blanche Sweet chooses Charles West over Wilfred Lucas (probably because Lucas wears lousy duds), so Lucas goes off to become a scout for the army. A few years go by, and Lucas takes part in a raid on an Indian village. Meanwhile, Sweet and West join a wagon train, and eventually run into Lucas. The Indians decide to get even by attacking the wagon train. Who will survive?

There are some good shots of the fighting. Although the camera is mainly stationary, there is one scene where the camera pans slightly, but maybe it's because cameraman "Billy" Bitzer hiccupped. As white men die, they throw their arms into the air, which only happens in silent films. One guy is actually picked up by an Indian and knifed several times, so that caught my attention. The most ridiculous scene is when the settlers are surrounded. In the background, you can see the Indians riding around in circles ... away from their intended victims. The second most ridiculous scene is early on, when Sweet and West embrace ... and West gets his hand caught in a bush. This was obviously not planned, since we see West swatting at the bush as the scene fades out.

Can someone explain why an Indian would throw a bearskin over himself while trying to sneak up on a white man? I mean, if the guy really think it's a bear, isn't he gonna blow its brains out anyway?

Lionel Barrymore is supposed to be in this, but I couldn't spot him ... unless he was under the bearskin.

DW Griffith films are like proverbs. For every one preaching one point of view, you can find another stating the opposite. The Massacre is, perhaps, the "Too many cooks spoil the broth" to The Battle of Elderbrush Gulch's "Many hands make light work".

Although the framing story is that of a family of white settlers, the central segment showing a seemingly unprovoked raid on an Indian village (an equally viable candidate for the titular massacre) is a different matter. The camera is literally on the side of the Indians, joining them on the hillside as they flee. The cavalry charge is not exciting (and Griffith was more than capable of making it so had he wished), and in both this and the final massacre the mid-shots are mostly of victims being gunned down, whereas the attackers are only shown in distant "god" shots.

The Massacre was Griffith's last two-reeler before he moved onto features (which Judith of Bethulia could be counted as), and there are some good examples of how he is now adept at balancing out a longer story. While the opening scenes are fairly inconsequential, there is a single close-up of Blanche Sweet's baby – which not only elicits an emotional response, but also helps us remember the child later on. Later, there is a short scene of some of the settlers playing cards, which seems superfluous at the time, but it pays off towards the end when one of the men is killed, the cards spilling from his hand as he falls. Perhaps most significant of all are the couple of brief family shots from the Indian village shortly before the first massacre, neatly echoing the scenes with the settler family.

Another shot, not as effective but nevertheless remarkable, is of a wolf being frightened off by a bear, just before the Indians attack. It's a rare bit of symbolism from Griffith and while not particularly subtle it was quite a novelty for the time. And it does sum up the message of the picture, the same as that of Fort Apache; that Native Americans, while being traditional antagonists of the Western genre, should never be underestimated.

Arriving on screens just two weeks after Francis Ford's similar The Invaders, the likelihood that D. W. Griffith was attempting to go one better than his competitor is undeniable - as is the fact that he succeeded in doing so. The story sees a group of settlers under attack from a tribe of Indians in retaliation for their own families being wiped out in an unprovoked raid by the cavalry. The decision to present the Indians as both victims and villains is a strange and confusing one that makes it impossible to condemn them completely as they massacre the wagon train in retaliation. Ford's battle scenes, filmed close to the action, create more excitement than Griffith's but also make it difficult to see what is going on; Griffith filmed his war scenes from a nearby hilltop, which looks spectacular and gives the film an epic feel similar to those in Birth of a Nation.

A two-reel offering which reproduces on an elaborate scale actual scenes from the government war with the Indians of the Northwest. The story interest is conventional, but well sustained. It is in the' tremendous fighting and scenic effects that this production excels. The photography is excellent and the story as it progresses seems to carry the observer into the heart of the early West. Bears and coyotes are pictured at the scene of the massacre and some interesting types, such as the preacher and the gambler, are portrayed. A fine release. - The Moving Picture World, March 14, 1914